Calling all Benidorm Experts.

villajoyosa_2

Hola Taff, think we've just about covered it all don't ya think. You will find plenty of Spanish oap's at the time you want to go. Jan 6th is 3 kings day so should be good. The oap's of Spain, whatever their nationality, if they live in Spain then they get to go away somewhere nice for a week or two and the government pay! What a lovely thing to do. Pity it don't happen here isn't it.

Anyway, have fun and enjoy yourselfs.

Villa

Taffyscot

Hola Villa,
So are you a Spanish person living in Britain or what is the scoop here? We were in Lloret last year for the festival of kings and it was fantastic, floats with all kinds of kings and throwing sweeties out on the street. Only thing is it was the first time that I realized my lovely partner felt very afraid of being knocked over. He has Parkinson's disease and has trouble with his walking but did not realize how bad his balance actually was. I had to grip him around his substantial girth and hold on tight to him assuring him he wasn't going to fall. this time I think he will take a walker with him. I love that festive atmosphere. Yes the Spaniards are very lucky to get all the holiday virtually paid for by the government. It saves the hotels from closing for the season and it keeps the young Spaniards working instead of paying them for being on the dole. I think it is a marvelous idea. We were very lucky as we were quite often with Spaniards at every meal and even when we weren't the waiters must have thought we were because they gave us water with our lunch and water and wine with our supper. My partner gave the waiter 10 euros at the beginning of the week and they looked after us so well. If you treat the Spanish with respect they give it back to you in droves. A lot of the Spanish we were with worked in the vineyards and fields and were astonished to see us take a photo of them and then be able to show it to them on digital camera. Getting excited now.
Thanks again all of you for your comments and much help.
Oh and queens did not have any vacancies for the time frame we requested so I wrote and asked if they had any vacancies at all as it seems like a cheap holiday to even take for a week and the food looks great.
Taffy

whitty999

Rio Park is the best hotel i have stayed in in Benidorm.

colmil

We stayed in the Bali lat week, tallest building in Spain, I rang and asked to be located in the 'Tower' and were given a room on the 35th floor! Fabulous view right oer the whole bay, can also see Altea from there, too!

Excellent bus service two minutes away, Finisratte beach ten minutes walk, I would reccommend it if you do not crave the entertainment scene.

Taffyscot

Hi Whitty, How many hotels have you stayed in in Benidorm? What are your thoughts on the others. Where is the Rio located and who did you book with? How much was it and how was the food? Food is a big thing for us because we love our grub and do not drink very much but love to take our time over some nice food. When did you stay there? Thanks
Taffy

villajoyosa_2

Hola Taff, Basque daddy is about as far as it goes but got the dark hair eyes and skin and lots of relatives in Ibiza Valencia Toledo Barcelona and some in Mansfield now. Thats easier cos its only about 15 miles away. Ha
Yes the Spaniards are very nice people but they differ from region to region. My cousin tells me although she is from Toledo she likes the people of Barcelona much better and my niece from Ibiza likes the people from Valencia. Very much the same as everywhere I imagine. My husband makes a wonderful Paella and during the summer he went to a Paella making competition to see if there was one as good as his but because he is obviously not Spanish they didn't let him taste but me they did. Ha Made me laugh so much. Don't think it was the real reason for him not getting any but in his opinion it was.....
I can't help you with any of the big hotels i'm afraid because apart from the Bali I only stay in the Queens or with friends. I came across the Queens because as we are a family of chefs we found the food in Benidorm a little same ish so when someone suggested trying there we did. Walked through all the tapas bars on the way, lovely in itself, and sat outside Queens wondering what we were in for and it was gorgeous. Really it was. Even their puddings are fab, try the cheesecake if you go. Very difficult to buy good pudding because its not Spanish thing, they like fruit rice pudding and flan. Its also difficult to buy ingrediants to make nice sweets so it was lovely to get a good one.

Villa

villajoyosa_2

Hola Taff, Basque daddy is about as far as it goes but got the dark hair eyes and skin and lots of relatives in Ibiza Valencia Toledo Barcelona and some in Mansfield now. Thats easier cos its only about 15 miles away. Ha
Yes the Spaniards are very nice people but they differ from region to region. My cousin tells me although she is from Toledo she likes the people of Barcelona much better and my niece from Ibiza likes the people from Valencia. Very much the same as everywhere I imagine. My husband makes a wonderful Paella and during the summer he went to a Paella making competition to see if there was one as good as his but because he is obviously not Spanish they didn't let him taste but me they did. Ha Made me laugh so much. Don't think it was the real reason for him not getting any but in his opinion it was.....
I can't help you with any of the big hotels i'm afraid because apart from the Bali I only stay in the Queens or with friends. I came across the Queens because as we are a family of chefs we found the food in Benidorm a little same ish so when someone suggested trying there we did. Walked through all the tapas bars on the way, lovely in itself, and sat outside Queens wondering what we were in for and it was gorgeous. Really it was. Even their puddings are fab, try the cheesecake if you go. Very difficult to buy good pudding because its not Spanish thing, they like fruit rice pudding and flan. Its also difficult to buy ingrediants to make nice sweets so it was lovely to get a good one.

Villa

villajoyosa_2

Sorry about that, got a bit over enthusiastic with keyboard on my laptop.

Taffyscot

HI villa, You have so hit the nail on the head about the hotels and what we are lookng for. We do want to be near the entertainment but do find the food even tho it might be quite good the sameish. My partner is an ex chef used to be one of the head chefs for BBC Scotland and likes good food. He thought that the Queens looks fab too. We did write to them and they did not have the spaces available that we wanted but did suggest that they had some openings in January so are contemplating going to one of the big ones near the new part for some of the holidays and then going to queens at the end and pigging out. The food does look lovely I have to say.
We have met Spaniards from Majorca,Rioja valleys, Madrid, Seville, Barcelona and loads more places and they are all really great, especially when they see us struggling to talk to them and make jokes with them in Spanish. I just wish we could make a real conversation with them. They would all try and teach us a little of their language tho and correct us when we misprounced things but in a really nice way. We met some marvelous Spanish farmers who were like meeting someone going back about 50 years. They had no idea how to use the internet or digital photos and were very basic people off the land and it was lovely to see that they took advantage of the Spanish government paying for them to have a well deserved holiday. We didn't realise until much later how much that shared bottle of champagnish that they won meant to them as they normally did not drink in the evenings because they were quite poor. So we shared many a bottle of champagne with them after playing the wee silly games that they played in the afternoons. Taffy

Diane60

Taffyscot wrote: »

Thanks all for your comments and suggestions. I really do appreciate them all. Stephb those hotels sol pelicanos, ambassador or the rosamar are all ones that I have been getting prices of and was leaning heavily towards rosamar. Then I saw several comments on hotel castilla and could not find one bad comment about that hotel unlike some of the others where there are some moaners for every one. Anyone know anything about the hotel castilla and the location of it? I have a really good rate quoted on the internet when I went into travel supermarket advertised on here. What do I do now? Do I phone up a travel agent and give them the quote and ask them what they can do to match it or what? Or do I just go with that site?
Thanks very much for all your personal comments about days out villa sounds like a lovely place and one that I would enjoy going to. Do you know of any quizzes anywhere there if you are a local? Just seem to find it keeps the old grey matter ticking over to go to a quiz or two.
thanks again folks and keep those comments coming.
Taffy

If you can find a good deal for the hotel Castilla go for it. It is part of a group of hotels in Benidorm, all have good ratings. The hotel is clean the food hot and varied. It is near the Rio Park. A word of warning though, there are at present building work at the side of the hotel. We have just returned and I can confirm that it is not too noisy. We have rebooked for March already! Two streets down are two good bars, Terrace bar & Bourbon Bar both do a couple of quizzes a week and are good fun.